Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Scientists are chasing a new lead on a class of drugs that may one day fight both pain and opioid addiction. It's still early days, but researchers report that they've discovered a new small molecule that binds selectively to a long-targeted enzyme, halting its role in pain and addiction while not interfering with enzymes critical to healthy cell function. The newly discovered compound isn't likely to become a medicine any time soon. But it could jumpstart the search for other binders that could do the job.

Pain and addiction have many biochemical roots, which makes it difficult to treat them without affecting other critical functions in cells. Today, the most potent painkillers are opioids, including heroin, oxycodone, and hydrocodone. In addition to interrupting pain, they inhibit enzymes known as adenylyl cyclases (ACs) that convert cells' energy currency, ATP, into a molecule involved in intracellular chemical communication known as cyclic AMP (cAMP). Chronic opioid use can make cells increase the activity of ACs to compensate, causing cAMP levels to skyrocket. When opioid users try to stop using, their cAMP levels remain high, and drugs that reduce those levels—like buprenorphine—have unwanted side effects.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Dr. James Weinstein, a back pain specialist and chief executive of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System, has some advice for most people with lower back pain: Take two aspirin and don't call me in the morning.

On Monday, the American College of Physicians published updated guidelines that say much the same. In making the new recommendations for the treatment of most people with lower back pain, the group is bucking what many doctors do and changing its previous guidelines, which called for medication as first-line therapy.

Dr. Nitin Damle, president of the group's board of regents and a practicing internist, said pills, even over-the-counter pain relievers and anti-inflammatories, should not be the first choice. "We need to look at therapies that are nonpharmacological first," he said. "That is a change."

Sunday, February 05, 2017

Welcome to Pain Researcher, a community forum for anyone involved or interested in the study of pain.

The major purpose of this forum is to facilitate discussion around any and all topics related to the pain research. One important gap that this forum aims to fill involves the sharing of knowledge needed to properly execute pain studies such as detailed protocols, technical tips, tool development, methodological considerations, etc. It is these crucial details that determine the quality and validity of the findings of pain studies, and so we hope that giving a space to discuss such details will improve pain research globally.